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'Life After Life' book continuously enjoyable

By Kathleen Dowd For the Reporter-Herald

Posted:
11/13/2013 05:20:07 PM MST

I usually don't get around to reading popular new fiction until well after the book has left the best-seller list, but I'm glad that this book by Kate Atkinson caught my eye recently. In her new book, "Life After Life," Kate Atkinson explores the idea of a life lived on a continuous "repeat" loop and the impact it has on the main character and the world around her.

The story begins with the main character, Ursula Todd, being born in England in 1910. She dies immediately at birth. The story moves to the next (almost) identical scene, but during this birth, Ursula lives.

Her life is unfolded from the beginning again and again, with Ursula succumbing to various tragedies that take her life as a child and adolescent, and each time she is reborn, but with no conscious memory of her previous life.

With each rebirth she begins a new journey, in which small elements are different, but end up having far-reaching consequences. One particularly heartbreaking part of her life is during the Spanish Influenza outbreak of 1918. She and her family and their household staff are all affected by the disease, and ultimately Ursula is able to break through the repeat cycle of suffering.

Throughout her repeated lives, she begins to experience a vague sense of déj vu, but has no real memory of why she feels like things are heading toward disaster. She is successful in avoiding some of her accidental death experiences by paying attention to an inner voice that sometimes steers her toward a different choice.

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As Ursula becomes a young woman, her family and friends are increasingly drawn into the tapestry of events that shape her life and her ultimate destiny. Her mother, Sylvie, is a loving mother but is a woman who really enjoys children best as babies. There are times that Sylvie's detached parenting forces Ursula into choices that once again, lead to her death. Ursula is rescued in several lives by her highly likeable Aunt Izzie. Izzie has quite a history herself, and ironically lives her live "as if there is no tomorrow."

As Ursula's adult life unfolds as Civil Service worker in London during the Blitz, the author makes you realize that life is fragile, and that small choices we make do matter.

Ultimately Ursula makes choices that bring her story to a very poignant and thought provoking close.

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